Portion of the East Grand Boulevard Packard plant. Image courtesy Google Street View.
Nothing comes easy with Detroit's crumbling Packard plant, and the phrase "free and clear" certainly does not apply, as developer Fernando Palazuelo is quickly finding out, following a claim on the plant from its previous owner, who has demanded that Palazuelo pay another $3.5 million for it.
Meanwhile, the city of Detroit has told Palazuelo, who bought the plant for $405,000 at a foreclosure auction from the county in December, that it still owns a key parcel smack dab in the middle of the Packard plant complex. Dominic Cristini, the former owner of the plant, has laid claim to that parcel as well.
Palazuelo, the Spanish-born Peru-based developer, won the county foreclosure auction on the plant in November and completed payments to the county in December and has since outlined grand plans for a mixed-use development of the property, including residential, commercial, and industrial uses, and even a go-kart track. However, according to reports in the Detroit Free Press, Cristini - whose failure to pay about $1 million in back taxes led to the foreclosure and subsequent auction of the 40-acre complex - now claims that the county botched the foreclosure process by not giving him proper notice.
County spokesmen disputed Cristini's claims and said they sent out sufficient notice via certified mail and published public notices. Regardless, Cristini reportedly met with Palazuelo to offer to release his claim on the property - and the claims of an unknown number of others also invested in the property - if Palazuelo paid him $3.5 million. "This is typical blackmail," Palazuelo told the Free Press. "I told... Cristini that Christmas is over."
The Packard plant in 1954. Photo courtesy Hugo90.
Outside claims on the Packard plant don't end there, though. Earlier this month, again according to the Free Press, the city announced that it still owned a 4.5-acre parcel within the Packard plant complex that includes half of the much-photographed pedestrian bridge crossing East Grand Boulevard and the four-story building on the northeast corner of East Grand and Concord Street. The state of Michigan gained control over that particular parcel in the 1990s through a separate foreclosure and deeded it to the city in 1999. Because the city owns it, the parcel was left out of last year's county-run auction. City officials said they will work with Palazuelo to resolve the matter.
The factory dates back to Packard’s 1903 move from its birthplace of Warren, Ohio, to Detroit. Designed by Albert Kahn, who became one of America’s foremost industrial architects (his works include Ford’s Rouge plant and GM’s headquarters of 1919), the East Grand Avenue plant was one of this country’s earliest examples of reinforced concrete construction, and was once admired as one of the most advanced factories in the world. The factory on East Grand Boulevard, once one of the most modern in the world, stopped producing automobiles in the fall of 1954, when production was shifted to the former Briggs body plant on Connor Avenue that Packard had leased from Chrysler. The company left East Grand for South Bend in 1956, after consolidating its operations with Studebaker. The factory had a variety of paying tenants over the past several decades, the last of which left in 2010. Despite the weather and the efforts of vandals, looters, scrappers and arsonists, much of the reinforced-concrete skeleton of the factory building remains standing.
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Photo: GM Media Archives
Selecting this, a racing hopeful had to lay out a not-insubstantial $1,818.45 ($18,110 in today’s money) atop the $4,038 (circa $40,210) MSRP of a 1963 Corvette coupe that was also optioned with the L84 fuel-injected 360-hp V-8 ($430.40, or $4,285), four-speed manual transmission ($188.30, or $1,875), and Positraction limited-slip differential ($43.05, or $429). Later in the year, Chevrolet lowered the Z06 package cost to $1,293.56 ($12,880) by making the initially included cast-aluminum knock-off wheels and 36.5-gallon fuel tank —RPO P48 and N03—into standalone options. Even in its most basic form, a Z06-equipped 1963 Sting Ray was an expensive car.
And it has always been one, especially from the mid-2000s when retail book values shot up exponentially. Classic.com has been tracking the values of many variants of Chevy’s sports car for the past five years, and non-Z06-equipped 1963 models now sell at auction for an average sum just under $160,000. The Z06 variant is a special case, and although the website currently considers the ’63 Corvette Z06 to be a declining market benchmark at $510,165, it has hardly reached bargain-basement status—the current average public-sale price as of press time is $531,154. Thirteen Z06s have sold at auction since August 2019, with the least expensive being a coupe that changed hands via Mecum in Houston for $235,000 in April 2023, and the priciest being a sub-5,400-mile original that commanded $1,242,500 (the pre-sale estimate was $750,000-$900,000) at Gooding & Company’s Amelia Island event in March 2022. These figures handily outstrip current retail book values that range between $219,000 and $447,500.
Value Trend - 1963 Chevrolet Corvette RPO Z06
1958 Pontiac Bonneville Sport Coupe
While GM made general announcements and events around its 50th anniversary for 1958, only Pontiac incorporated the occasion into its advertising. It mattered little that the first Pontiac rolled off the assembly line in 1926 as sub-brand of Oakland. Laid out in large letters in its brochure, Pontiac’s advertising theme for 1958 carried the tagline “The boldest advance in fifty years,” also declaring “A new kind of cars is born!” Previously introduced as a well-optioned convertible version of the Star Chief in 1957, the standalone Bonneville arrived for 1958.
Promising “the first true union of sport car action with town car luxury,” the Bonneville was only produced as a pillarless hardtop Sport Coupe or a drop-top Sport Convertible for 1958. As “a modern ultimate for the man who loves cars…this steel-muscled road machine,” the Bonneville featured a 370-cu.in. V8 engine with a four-barrel carburetor and 10:1 compression as standard equipment. An optional Tri-Power setup with triple two-barrel carburetors was given the “Tempest 395” moniker for its 395 lb-ft torque rating.
As the late 1950s was peak Jet Age, aeronautical and rocket themes pervade the details of the Bonneville. The leading edge of the scalloped rear quarter panels featured a very rocket-like piece of chrome trim that extended to a point at the front of the car. On top of each front fender, just before the headlamps, sat additional chrome-plated pieces that resembled delta-wing jets with appendages that lead into creases atop the fenders like contrails from jet engines.
Finished in Burma Green with Calypso Green accents, this 1958 Bonneville Sport Coupe, one of 9,144 produced, appears to have been restored some years ago, with a fit and finish that looks to be holding up. It is equipped with the Tri-Power 370 and a four-speed Super Hydra-Matic transmission. It is additionally fitted with power windows and power brakes, along with the rare Trans-Portable radio unit that can be removed and used as a portable radio with its built-in speaker and ability to run off batteries. The seller notes no problems with the drivetrain and asserts that the transmission shifts well.
1958 Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe
Chevrolet didn’t revel in the golden jubilee news that Pontiac touted, but its advertising in 1958 suggested that its redesigned models were “Almost too new to be true!” The ad copy also promised that “You’ll like being looked at in your beautiful ’58 Chevrolet.” Longer, lower and wider than the famous “Tri-Five” models that preceded it, the Chevrolet models somewhat mirrored what was going on at Pontiac, but with a rear-end treatment that seemed to show the previous year’s tall tailfins flopped over somewhat. In magazines ads, the words accompanying the first-year Impala Sport Coupe suggested “This sleek styles-setter promises action, gaiety, glamor—and it keeps its promises beautifully.”
Like the Bonneville nameplate, the first Chevrolet to wear the Impala badge arrived in 1958. Chevy also introduced its first big-block V8, the so-called “W” engine. For 1958, Chevrolet dubbed this 348-cu.in. engine the Turbo-Thrust V8 when equipped with a four-barrel carburetor and Super Turbo-Thrust when fitted with Tri-Power triple carburetion. Though it lacked the aviation/space themes of the Bonneville’s styling, the similarly proportioned Impala was also festooned with plenty of brightwork, from the wide grille to side spears that ran nearly from the taillights to the headlamps. Pound-for-pound, the massive wraparound bumpers probably contained the highest amount of chrome on the car.
Finished in Onyx Black with a bold Rio Red-dominated interior, this 1958 Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe now on Hemmings Auctions features a long-term restoration that spanned the 1990s. Completed in 2001, it appears to be holding up well. The photos of the very clean undercarriage that accompany the listing tell a story that the car has been taken care since that redo. This example is fitted with the four-barrel 348 that was rated at 250 horsepower when new. Power reaches the rear axle via a two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission.
GM made some distinct design changes for 1958. With plenty of models across five passenger-car divisions, we are fortunate to have options in the collector car hobby when it comes to these chrome-laden machines. Which of these ’58 hardtop coupes would you like to cruise in?
Head on over to Hemmings Auctions to take a look and let us know.
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